Zygmunt Landau
1898 - 1962

The son of a rabbi, Landau studied in Jacob Kacenbogen's School of Art in Łódź, as did Henryk Epstein. Later in his studies at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, he was tutored in Stanislaw Lentz's atelier. At age eighteen, he was giving painting lessons. He continued to contribute to the artistic life of Łódź, even after a stay in Paris from 1919 to 1920. In France he lived in Montparnasse in a building called "La Ruche" ("The Hive") where artists had their apartments and ateliers. Landau attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere, the Académie Colarossi and frequently visited Parisian museums. He made friends with Moise Kisling and Amedeo Modigliani, among others. He returned to Poland in 1928 where his works were being exhibited in Warsaw and Łódź. The artist lived in Saint-Tropez for a while with Roger Fry, a well-known English critic, painter, and a leading force of The Bloomsbury Group. Fry promoted Landau's paintings both in England and in the United States. At the outbreak of World War II in September of 1939, Landau went to live in Saint-Tropez. After the war he resided in Nice and Paris. At the same time his works were being displayed in London and Stockholm. In the late 1950s, he moved to Israel where he continued to work as a painter. In 1962, he completed his last work, a set of stained-glass windows for a small chapel adjoining the YMCA in Tiberias, Israel. Included in his work was a commission to illustrate Edmond Fleg's Écoutez, Israël.

His early works were mainly of townscapes of Łódź, figural scenes and portraits. In his early Self-Portrait, the realism of his drawing is interwoven with a post-impressionistic palette, rich in contrasting hues and an abstracted treatment in a thick layer of color. Influenced by French art and School of Paris artists, the painter approached his compositions with a discipline similar to that of Cézanne. Characteristic features of chromatics in Landau's paintings blend contrasts in value with a palette of quietly toned colors, made brighter as a result of the artist's observations of France's southern landscapes. Poetic lyricism of his still lifes and portrait paintings is often compared to similar sensibilities evoked by works of his Parisian friends, Amedeo Modigliani, Moise Kisling and Marc Chagall. "In Landau's paintings, traditional realism is often intertwined with folkloric elements. The forms are always bending, drawing lines are moderate, and contrasting tints are beautiful and deep but not violent" (see Landau 1970).

Landau had one-man shows in Łódź (1928), Paris (1934, 1946 and 1954); London (1935, a posthumous display in 1964); Stockholm (1947); Jerusalem (1958, a posthumous show in 1963). Other posthumous exhibits of his work include Paris (1962 with two more in 1970) and Amsterdam (1970). He made his debut in Łódź at the Spring Exhibition organized by the Society of Artists and Lovers of Fine Arts in 1918. Then, in 1921 exhibits were mounted both in Łódź and Warsaw. He contributed to exhibitions of Polish art in Paris (1921, 1922). Beginning in 1926 his works were exhibited at le Salon des Independents and at the Salon d'Automne.

-- Artur Tanikowski

Works in the collection: